April 2009 - grind despite the great

It's incredible how your focus narrows when you're establishing a routine.  Going back to school like I was with the Architecture classes at Pierce, I was so involved in the projects and class meetings and deadlines and so caught up in the speed of it all.  Looking back on that time, my months were dense with individual events, whereas classes seem like the backdrop now that they should have been at the time.

Example:

In April, I spent a week in Santa Cruz over my spring break, then Nicole came down for Easter, which we had with her family at the Marriott.  We binged ourselves on tiny confections and baked goods, for the dessert smorgasbord kept changing colors and shapes, and we had to try them all.  Before Easter, of course, came Passover though.  We had a seder with Lara and Sam and everyone at our apartment - the most riotous and unorthodox seder ever (not one, but two organs on the plate) - and then another seder with my family at their house. 

Then I met with Mike to try to put organize a community engagement initiative with our fellow Angelenos - UBLA (Unified for a Better LA).  We had opportunities lining up through the rest of the month and beyond to get people involved.  Gio's birthday happened, as did Lily's and my dad's.  I met with Kyle's dad, talking about his work with the Santa Susanna Mountain Preservation Association.  I drove to Monterey Park to buy snake plants from a nice young mother type, and then the next week to Riverside to drop off homebrew entries for my brother.

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In April, in school, I had twenty-five class meetings, two projects, and one field trip.

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At the time though, school probably took up a lot more of my mind.  Perspective, right?

December 2008 - typical socal winter wonderland

With the beginning of December, two things became official - Nicole and me, and Foxman and me.  One I was kissing a lot and the other I was moving in with.

My dad and I ran up to the Ranch to do so some upkeep on the remnants of our past lives we keep up there.  I did find a lot of goodies in the trailer though, goodies with which to fill my new apartment.  Sarah came into town and she and Gio and I went down to the Grove to hang out and see Milk, a perfect Christmas time story. 

Then it was all art galleries in Venice, rock climbing, sailing with Uncle Bob, going out to see the Nutcracker at the Music Center, Chanukah singalongs, Nicole in Hawaii, and caroling around the neighborhood with a mug of cocoa (spiked graciously, thanks to Shoghi's heavy hand).

When Nicole got back we launched immediately into a road trip that took us from the leaky palms of LA to the frozen boulders of Joshua Tree National Park and then up through the Sierras and down to her new home in Santa Cruz.  We moved in most of her belongings and slept on a bed made of an aggregation of couch cushions in the middle of her new bedroom.

We ended up back in LA, at Byran's loft downtown, for New Years, which involved a giant red eye and the phrase "HYPNOBELLY" painted on my abdomen, fire spinning on the roof, some very drunk people, sushi by Sam, some very high people, and just generally a lot of 'very' things going on.  And friends, good friends too.